The rise of HiVa
by Zerodone
Summary: The initial idea was to let her control the Zerg, so they wouldn't destroy the country. So why the hell is everything in ruins and covered in this gray stuff? Cover art: tsabo6 from deviantart (link won't stay in this box) Awesome art.
1. Chapter 1

Hana Song, aka was a lot of things. A gaming idol, strong, athletic, ruthless both in combat and in gaming, excellent with small caliber weapons and (let's be realistic) the wet dreams of a lot of gamers. But most important of all, she was exhausted. And for once it wasn't thanks to the attack of that big omnic underwater, though that one was overdue by two months by now. No, she was so K.O. because the terrorist organization Talon had shown an interest in one of South Korea's not anymore most secret research facilities. It wasn't most secret anymore, due to habit of streaming all of her operations. She might or might not have overheard the General telling her to not connect to Twitch this time. But whatever, where Hana's thoughts. Talon knew about the facility anyways, meaning there was no going around relocating everything of worth inside while destroying the rest.

Speaking of Talon, they put up one hell of a fight. Not the goons mind you. Their remains were right now cleaned up by some unfortunate janitor, who cursed his decision to play video games, instead of studying for school.

No, the real fight put up the infamous mercenary Reaper, that bitch camper assassin Widowmaker and that one purple hacker, whose name Hana picked up were Sombra. Those three had shown some insane skills, among cheap tactics, but seriously lost three of her mechs that day, technically four, although the last one she self-destructed. She had lost many friends today, due to the effort of her three opponents, though luckily or sadly depending on how you view things, she had come far too used to losing allies. The days where she was an emotional wreck after the stream ended were long over. And for a time it appeared as if her days would have been over as well.

Luckily there was Overwatch. Although not anymore supported by the UN, the former agents decided to say: "Screw you fuckers, we're doing our own shit." And a good thing too. Tracer and Winston had more than enough experience, when it came to taking on Widowmaker and Reaper. Hana had seen those four more than one time on the news. Mercy, thank heavens, had been capable of keeping her mech intact with that awesome healing rod that pumped nanomachines into the walker, keeping the hull intact. And then there had been Soldier 76. From what Hana found out via Tracer, he was an on and off, when it came to Overwatch activities. No one knew much about him, except that he was a good guy, even though his methods are sometimes questionable. But at this point, Overwatch couldn't be picky.

After they had successfully fend off Talon, which included an epic fistfight between 76 and Reaper, Overwatch as well scrammed before any of the South Korean authorities could catch them. Technically belonged to those authorities, but there was no way in hell she would betray the people that just helped her out save the day and by proxy her. Hana's superior officer could complain all he wanted. She and he knew that everything had been live streamed on the internet and by the time Hana was at home, videos already had been spread around the world about Overwatch's latest activity. From what she had read in the comment section, her viewers had particularly enjoyed the show and wanted to see more of her fighting alongside the rogue organization.

But that was as unlikely as it was of Hana even considering playing a game this evening. Her body was sore, she smelled horrible, due to her sweating in that skin tight suit all day and to top it all off, she could look forward to a lot of serious backlash from her superiors the next day for not even attempting to apprehend an Overwatch Agent. Yay her.

After throwing her clothes into a random corner of her apartment, because right now she couldn't care less about keeping it tidy, Hana headed to her bathroom as quickly as her tired legs allowed her and entered the shower. After making sure she did not fall asleep, while cleaning her body (again), Hana barely dried her body off and left her hair damp, before slamming face first into her pillow. She managed to stay conscious for long enough to put the blanket over her and was about to lose herself to dreamland when out of nowhere her telephone began ringing angrily.

Naturally, her first reaction was it to toss her telephone across the room, until it collided with a wall, causing it to be broken into pieces. However, for some reason, the ringing didn't stop at all, quite the contrary actually. It took the young agent a few seconds to realize that what she had just thrown across the room had indeed not been her phone, but rather her i-Vid. Facepalming at her own stupidity, the girl begrudgingly stumbled over to the shelf, where she had last placed the phone and actually picked up the call, instead of smashing the damn piece of technology too.

"Yeah…?" she drawled, her eyes half closed.

"Miss Song? This is General Tang."

"Oh great…" Hana said aloud, too tired to realize that she didn't keep these words to herself. "Can't you at least let me sleep before you rage quit on me?"

"Oh, believe me, there are a lot of things I wish to talk with you about." the voice of the general replied. "However, I'm afraid that I have to wait for this, as well as you will have to wait for your sleep." The General himself sounded a little tired, Hana noted to herself.

"And what's going on? Is it the Omnics?" she asked, stalking her hallways, trying to find the specific corner she threw her skinsuit. The door frame was a no-go. Oh right, the door frame wasn't a corner or so her tired brain told Hana. Whether she could trust it or not right now was up to debate.

"No, the Omnics are not attacking. It is something I cannot talk with you about over the telephone. I suggest you make yourself some coffee because this will be an all-nighter I'm afraid."

"Should have just gone AFK…" Hana mumbled, almost running over a small table in her living room, the snack table to be precise.

"Your transport will be there in fifteen minutes. That is all." And without another word, the General hung up, leaving with only the annoying beep sounds. Shutting the old, plastic thing up, she threw it into another corner and continued her quest on finding her clothes, because her body temperature dropped rather quickly, due to the lack of clothing.

XXX

Thirty minutes, three cups of coffee and a quick stop at a McDonald's later, with her fourth cup of coffee in her hand and holding the fifth one with her other hand, Agent Hana Song walked with bags under her eyes and a scowl on her face through Military Headquarters in Seoul. Although it was late at night, the hallways of the HQ were filled with both soldiers and civilian workers from the night shift. This wasn't as odd as one might imagine, especially when something big had transpired during the day. Normally "something big" referred to yet another Omnic invasion, however today it was due to Talon's attack on the laboratory.

Hana noted that she wasn't the only person who had been thrown out of bed. The soldiers did a good job of hiding their tiredness, as was expected of them. The civies, however, the ones sitting on their desks, picking up phone calls and working on their holovids, all of them had a cup of coffee or some other caffeine drink in front of them. They too had bags under their eyes, some people's hair was in disarray and here and there was a button not properly closed.

Approaching the elevator, Hana needed to wait until everyone else had exited. Some of those people even greeted her, but she completely ignored them, knowing that she would yell at them the second she opened her mouth. It was a bad habit of hers and she knew it, but this wasn't something she could do much about. Aside from drinking unhealthy amounts of coffee of course.

After entering the specific elevator, Hana hit the button that would bring her down the fifth basement floor. She didn't know herself why she was summoned there, she only got this information from her driver. The room where those special meetings were being held changed every time, mostly because specific rooms held specific equipment for presentation and the such.

Luckily for the Mech Pilot, that day was that no one else needed to use the elevator, which meant she reached her destined floor in thirty seconds. The hallways there weren't particularly different from the ones upstairs. Painted white, blue dirty floor and way too bright lights illuminating the entire thing. If there was one notable difference it was the absence of any other human being. But what was there to expect? It was the fifth basement floor.

Hana checked the number plates hanging in front of every room, while she walked down the empty hallway. Once she reached her destination, she entered the room without even knocking. Inside she found a big holo projector running, showing the South Korean flag. It probably was just on standby. A line of tables was placed in front of the hologram, forming a U, as it allowed everyone present to look at it.

Speaking of everyone present, the only two people Hana recognized were General Tang and the current Prime Minister. Everybody else consisted of scientists, all wearing white lab coats and various equipment around their arms and sometimes even faces. At times entire limbs were replaced with robotic counterparts.

General Tang excused himself from the Prime Minister, who he had been talking to until a couple of minutes ago and approached the Mech Pilot. Tang wore his standard military uniform, along with every single medal the man had earned over the years. And he had that fancy hat, the one always wanted to have. Aside from the standard clothing, the man had a light brown skin, a face which looked like one you would find everywhere, really and had his black hair cut short.

"Miss Song."

"Sir." Hana gave the man a lazy salute, after which she emptied her coffee and threw the plastic into the next best crash can. "What's up?"

The General resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead led the girl to two empty seats. "While during your last mission you were successful in defending our laboratory in sector 12C, some of the equipment became inevitably damaged."

Hana did not resist the urge to roll her eyes, as she and the general took their respective seats. "What the fuck was you expecting? It was a fucking warzone! Of course, the place got wrecked, tell me something I don't know."

General Tang glared at the girl sitting next to him, his eye twitching in irritation. "I am well aware of that. While the loss of equipment is acceptable, given that the facility was saved, there was a particular piece of equipment that was destroyed during the fight."

"Uh huh, go on. I'm not a mind-reader, you know."

"The equipment or better said the machine that was destroyed was specifically designed for one thing. Namely to keep a specific species docile, while we studied it and conducted experiments on it."

raised an eyebrow. "Okay? So which endangered species on the planet did you try to turn into a biological super weapon?"

"Children…" the general sighed, rubbing his forehead. "You play too many video games, agent Song."

Hana grinned in return. "I am here because I play so many video games." She crossed her arms behind her head and leaned backward on her chair. "But seriously, what's down there? 'Cause from the sound of things, I'm gonna be doing some pest control."

"Pest control?" The general chuckled, causing Hana to raise another eyebrow. "I guess control is the right word."

"Huh?"

"Just listen." the military man advised, subtly pointing towards the holo-vid. "It is about to start."

Indeed, when Hana looked to the front of her, she could see a professor with a tablet standing right next to the screen. The mech pilot was sure to have seen the scrawny looking man somewhere before, but couldn't just place him as of yet.

"Ladies and Gentleman, I thank you for coming at such a short and inconvenient notice. As many of you can guess, this meeting was called in, due to the recent terrorist attack on one of our research facilities."

The screen behind the man switched, now showing a live feed of the heavily damaged building. Talon certainly didn't pull any punches. Bombs had breached the outer walls, nearly every window got destroyed due to gunfire (or more explosion), there was still smoke coming out of some places and the very top floor had collapsed. Suddenly Hana knew what that loud sound had been after Winston went on a rampaged.

"At this point, we can only guess as to what the terrorist organization was after, but that is not of importance right now. What is important is one of our most secretive research projects and how it might threaten our entire country."

Now Hana recognized the man. He was one of the lab dudes she and the others saved. And really? A project that threatened the entirety of South Korea? Why wasn't she surprised? Oh, because she had seen some of the stuff they had been working on, especially on the basement levels.

There were general murmurs of unrest in the room, but Hana kept her quite. It was just another Tuesday to her. Something threatened the world and she had to save the day. Why else would they have called only her to this meeting, if it was this important?

"Now then, let's continue," the lab guy said, as the screen behind him changed. It now showed some kind of circling device, standing on top of a ramp. There were some panels attached to the device and...auto-turrets pointed in the middle of the circle? Why was that?

"Most of you have heard rumors about our secret projects, some of which are just fantastic, others...surprisingly accurate." The man admitted. He pushed up his glasses and cleared his throat, before continuing.

"What I will tell you now will sound just as fantastical as some of the rumors you might have heard, however, I can assure you everything I will tell you now is the entire truth. As proof of my words, I will provide you with no short amount of data we were able to gather over the years."

"I am sorry to interrupt," a female scientist raised her arm "but could I ask a question?"

"You cannot." The generals spoke up, surprising Hana a little. "I am sorry, but all of your questions have to wait for after this presentation. When he said the fate of our country is at stake he wasn't making a joke."

Of course, this caused only more murmurs to come up, which were shut down by the general clearing his throat. "Now then, professor. Please tell everyone what is shown on the holo-vid and how it is responsible for the situation we're in."

"Y-yes. Thank you, general."

Hana noted that the woman who asked the question appeared offended.

"Anyways, I'll get straight to the point. We were looking for a way to end the omnic threat once and for all and someone had the idea to look beyond our world. Beyond our universe. In fact, beyond our very own dimension."

And all of the sudden, Hana was wide awake. "Wait a fucking second!" she exclaimed. "Are you telling me this thing-"

"Indeed, agent Song." the still unnamed lab guy nodded. "This is a device, which is capable of opening portals to other dimensions."

Hana's jaw hit the desk. She didn't care about the ensuing mess of voices around her. She was sorely focused on her own thoughts, which drifted to all kinds of places. Namely, all the places she wanted to visit for vacation! Heck, Azeroth alone had enough to cover her next twenty vacations! Not to mention all the awesome planets she would be able to visit in the Koprulu Sector. She wondered how well she would fare against Diablo and his (hers?) seemingly countless numbers of demons. Or maybe she could just chill out at the Tavern and play some Hearthstone with-

Hana was snapped out of her fantasy, when the generals slammed his fist on the table, silencing the room. "Now listen up, everyone. I have heard it everything, from how something dangerous might enter our dimension or how the dimensional barriers could be torn apart and cause our reality to disappear. Here's the short version: our dimension is not going to disappear anytime soon. We only used this thing three times and afterward the project was shut down. The reason being?"

The general turned his attention from the general crowd and towards the professor in the middle of the room. "Professor?"

"Y-y-yes, general." The lab guy (Hana decided to stick with the name), cleared his throat once again, before continuing. "As the general mentioned, we have successfully opened a portal, after many failures to another dimension. The first time was a simple test, the second time prevented us from sending a drone, because of a power outage. The third time?" The lab guy took in a deep breath. "Before we could send out a drone, something else came in."

The holo-screen changed to a video footage. Despite everyone's expectations, it didn't show the portal being opened and something dangerous invading the laboratories and slaughtering everyone present. No, they simply showed footage of the things that came through being held like zoo animals in electric cages. The sight was enough to give Hana a heart/kawaii attack. For what she saw was a fully functioning Zerg Hive Cluster in the Tier 1 stage, complete with the units, which didn't try to break out for some reason. But that didn't matter. What mattered was the excuse she would give the general in order to get her new pet.

 **A/N: So, what do you think? Want more (or any) gaming references? Improvement ideas?**

 **And am I really the first one writing an Overwatch/Starcraft crossover including ? Please tell me I'm wrong. Else I'm going to be very disappointment.**


	2. Chapter 2

"Are you insane?! Are you insane you fucking retards?!" Hana exclaimed, as soon as her inner fangirl had subsided and her more logical side surfaced. "Not only did you bring an entire alien species from a freaking different dimension here, you also didn't decide to kill them as soon as you realized just what you brought in?! Oh, let me guess! You thought you could use them as weapons against the omnics or create super soldiers or what the hell do I know?! Dibs on being the first super soldier by the way." The gamer girl added the last part with a mutter, causing General Tang to facepalm. This was why he didn't like working with Gamers.

"Miss Song" it was the Prime Minister who spoke up for the first time "I can assure you we were well aware of the risks. Everyone involved in this project extensively…*ahem*...studied the history of the StarCraft universe excessively-"

"Oh yeah?!" Hana cut the man off, glaring daggers at him. "Then maybe you should know that those fuckers are unpredictable, can adapt to any kind of situation and weapon and have the tendency to eat entire planets!" she gritted her teeth and slammed her fist on the table. "Why didn't you burn them to the ground?! Did you really think you can control an alien species?!"

"Up until recently, we could."

Hana turned her head towards the general, who in return gesture towards the holo-screen. The man in charge of the remote pushed a button and the screen changed from footage of the Zerg Hive to blueprints of an apparatus that highly resembled a Hive Mind Emulator from the Wings of Liberty campaign. Nice building, but useless in the Campaign in her opinion.

"You probably recognize this from the game as well, Agent Song." The general walked in front of all the tables until he stood right next to the professor. "For everyone who doesn't know, this is called a Hive Mind Emulator. Along with the Zerg, one such device happened to fall through the portal due to circumstances unknown. We managed to retrieve the device, which luckily wasn't highly damaged. We also managed to power the device up, effectively getting every single alien under our control. Sadly, we couldn't just take it apart and study it, as it would have caused the Zerg to attack our staff once again."

"How exactly did you manage to repair such a device?" one of the other researchers asked. "It is alien after all."

"Actually, it was human made," the general explained. "The interface was in English and there was no firewall or even password protection. As such, using the device wasn't much of a problem. Recreating it, however, was impossible as I already explained."

"Still, why didn't you eradicate the aliens or at least limited their numbers to a sizable size for study?" another researcher asked. "I can understand the scientific curiosity and the once in a billion lifetime chance, but still…"

"Oh, we did limit their numbers." General Tang said, the holo-screen now showing as to what could only be explained as a slaughterhouse. Only, instead of cattle getting their heads cut off, it was the Zerg getting shot by high caliber auto-turrets. It wasn't a pleasant sight and at least two occupants of the room ran for the next best bathroom.

"I personally saw to it that the exterminations were being carried out. Sadly, those things have the nasty habit to increase in numbers, when left unchecked."

"That's what got damaged." Hana realized. "The Emulator got damaged during the fight and now the Zerg are on a rampage."

"Not only damaged, completely destroyed." The general said with a stern voice. The screen changed to a map, showcasing an underground lap and zoomed into a big room called "Contamination Room". It was showcased to be surrounded by big metal walls, however, two red "X" appeared in two places on the ground side.

"We don't know where the Zerg got the necessary materials from, but they managed to rebuild their numbers significantly. The toxic gas we prepared has proven to be useless and our researchers don't have the time to perfect the formula or reconstruct the Hive Mind Emulator."

An uneasy murmur filled the room. Many people here didn't know what the Zerg were capable of, but all of them had seen the one or other horror movie, showcasing aliens as the big antagonist, ready to wipe out humanity in some gruesome way or other.

"Time is of essence. On those two places," the general pointed to the Xs "the Zerg have begun digging tunnels. It will take some time for them to get through, but they're making way more progress than should be possible. These are reinforced alloy platings, able to resist explosions of our biggest bombs, aside from nuclear missiles. It will take them days at most to dig their way through and make their way to the outside."

Even more, murmurs filled the room.

"Let me guess." Hana sighed. "You need me and the guys to turn every single one of them into bullet sponges."

"If it were that easy, we would have already done that." The General retorted with a deadpan voice. "Currently the lab is not reachable in any way, due to the collapse of almost every passageway. Clearing a way through the rubble will take too long. Luckily some of the surveillance cameras are still working, so we have life feedback of what the Zerg are currently doing. Given all of those circumstances, there's one last thing we can do to stop a catastrophe."

"Really?"

"What is it?"

"Is it dangerous?"

Multiple questions were thrown into the room at once. The Prime Minister at that moment stood up and walked in the middle of room. Everyone went silent, as soon as the country's leader stepped forward.

"The General and I have discussed this "Last Measurement" in great detail. It is certainly not without its risks, that I cannot deny. However, it is either that or the possible total annihilation of our beloved country."

~What a speech.~ Hana thought in a sarcastic matter. Clearly, without anyone to write the actual speeches for him, the Prime Minister was no better at coming up with stuff on the fly, than a Bronze League Player.

"What I am about to say might sound outlandish and you have all right to question our sanity for even thinking about doing such a thing, but I am afraid we do not have the time to think about a better solution than the one we have right here. With any luck, it will only be short term, however, there is no telling, whether this will be true or not. Miss Song?"

"Yes, Prime Minister?" ~What a lame speech. Even I could write a better one.~

"Tell us, what entity controls the Zerg in the story? I think you can explain that better than everyone else."

Hana frowned for a moment, getting the story together in her head. "Well at first it was the Overmind, which is simply put a big brain creature, controlling everything. It was later revealed that some other thing controlled the Overmind, in order to destroy the galaxy. The Overmind still had enough control over himself to create a new leader, someone who would be free from this control. He basically turned a human...oh hell no." Hana's eyes widened in realization.

"It seems you have caught on." The General sighed. "Believe me, I don't like the idea either, but our only option at this point is to use the alien virus, which we managed to extract and turn someone into a Zerg-Human like it happened with Sarah Kerrigan in the story, who in return would control the Zerg."

The entire room went deathly silent.

"Specifically...we were wondering if you would like to volunteer, Agent Song."

Chaos ensued immediately after those words had been spoken.

XXX

"Well, that could have gone better," Sombra commented, as soon as she entered her personal room inside the Talon base. She herself just came out of the med bay, receiving treatment for multiple broken bones, which she received from a certain angry gorilla. Luckily for her, medicine had come a long way, especially thanks to Mercy's research, as such broken bones could be easily fixed if you had the right technology available. Still, it was recommended to not overburden the mended bones for a week or two, because the treatment was far from perfect. There was always some minor damage left, which the body had to heal itself.

Still feeling sore, the best hacker in the world let herself fall onto her bed and took out a holo-pad, in order to check her sources for anything that might interest her. Of course, being the best hacker in the world, her sources were plentiful and looking through all of them would be impossible. As such, she had written a complicated (for non-Sombras) algorithm, that would look for anything that really might interest Sombra. Everything else was stored away for possible later usage or deleted right away.

The thing Sombra was currently interested in was info about the contents of the secret lab she and the rest of Talon attacked just recently. Specifically, she looked at the device they had been after, something called a "Hive Mind Emulator". From the sparse information they managed to get together, it very basically was a device to mind control multiple people by connecting their brains to the device...somehow. Apparently so far, the South Korean Government had successfully tested the thing on ants, beetles and other insects, yet was hesitant to take the next step.

Naturally, Talon was more than interested in such a device, for obvious reasons. It was for this very same reasons that Reaper, Widowmaker, and Sombra herself had put a plan together to either use the device themselves or destroy it if it couldn't be operated by any of them. What did you expect? They weren't dumb enough to actually give away such a treasure.

"Hmm...well, looks like the problem just solved itself," Sombra mumbled to herself. According to the data from one of the holo's she'd hacked, the device had been destroyed beyond repair and the blueprints had been stored away somewhere else. Sure Talon could possibly search for the blueprints, but the Master Hacker decided to do this one all by herself and delete every single bit of data about the device. Seriously, she knew enough about humans to know where this would go if some idiot builds a second one.

Onto another subject, Overwatch proved to be more and more of a real problem, than a simple annoyance. Ever since the Overwatch agents regrouped Talon had a really hard time in achieving its goals. Perhaps it was time to change employees? There were more than enough people out there, who were ready to pay any price for Sombra's abilities. She even considered going solo, as it would give her a lot more leeway. Though, she personally still had use for Talon, Widowmaker, and Reaper, so maybe another time. Maybe she'd even work for the "good guys" for once. It would certainly bring some much-needed variety to her life. But on the other hand, the good guys always followed some stupid principle or rule, which usually went against Sombra's style.

XXX

Lena Oxton, aka Tracer, sighed in annoyance, as she exited the shower. Cleaning her body was always such a hassle for her since the Chrono Accelerator had to stay attached to her body 24/7. If she put it off even for a second, she ran the risk of disappearing for days, weeks or even months. Not to mention, half the time she wouldn't be able to touch anything, making it hard to shower at all. She had asked Winston multiple times to make her a newer version, one that was a bit slicker and allowed her to properly take care of her body.

Sadly, her primate friend couldn't help her much in that regard. There simply were too many mechanisms that needed to be accounted for. Speaking of the Gorilla, after getting a fresh set of clothes on, the former pilot found the scientist sitting in front of his holo-screens and going to what appeared to be a very long grocery shopping list. A shopping list consisting of weapons, mechanical doohickeys and stuff Tracer couldn't even guess what it was supposed to be.

"Whatcha doin', love?" she asked her longtime friend while approaching him from behind. Winston for his part glanced backward for a second, before readjusting his glasses and returning his attention to the "shopping list".

"Lena. I'm going through an inventory list of the facility in South Korea."

"Uh huh." Lena took another look at the list, now genuinely interested. She placed a hand on Winston's shoulder, the other one on the table and leaned forward. "Where'd you get that? Looks like top secret stuff to me."

"Soldier 76," Winston grunted, scrolling down the list. "He gave me a datapad, before disappearing who knows where. He meant it might help us find out as to why Talon targeted this specific facility."

"Hmm…" Tracer's eyes scanned through the contents. "Well, it was one of those places, you know. Maybe they just wanted to get some high-tech stuff and they somehow got the location and codes for this one."

But Winston shook his head. "Talon doesn't operate at random. They attack specific targets for specific reasons. Every country has a secret installation like this. If they were just after some next generation weapons, then there are better places for them to rob, like the US or Russia."

"Guess ya got a point there." Tracer conceded. "So, anything standing out."

"Not really. There are some rather disturbing projects listed, but nothing really outstanding. Not outstanding enough to gain Talon's attention anyways."

"Huh. I see. Program to identify potential terrorists via mouth movement? Yeah, sounds like something any government would want to have. Laser weaponry… bacteria bio-weapon?" Tracer shuddered at the implications. "I thought bio-weapons were forbidden…"

The Gorilla sighed, as he opened the specific file and skimmed over the contents. A few pictures of meat rotting away in a controlled environment and people wearing biohazard suits were included as well.

"Lena, we both know that the world doesn't work that way. There will be always someone who thinks they're above everything. Which is where we come in."

He put his oversized hand on her own and pressed it gently, yet reassuringly. Tracer smiled at her longtime friend, before returning to reading the files.

"Yeah, you're right." The time-girl nodded and returned her attention to the screen once again. Winston in the meantime, returned to the seemingly endless list of projects the South Korean Government has undergone in secret.

"I wonder why 76 not just looked over all this stuff himself." Tracer wondered, to which Winston simply snorted.

"He probably took a quick glance and thought he could come over as trustworthy or something for handing such valuable intel over to us. Personally, I think he just didn't want to spend time looking through all of this himself."

Winston placed his oversized hand on a smaller side screen and flipped the picture over to the main screen. The list went over to the smaller screen. The big screen now showed a picture of 76's face, along with some basic biometric data, such as height, possible age, hair color, blood type and so on. Winston type something into his holo-keyboard, which brought up pictures of various former Overwatch Bases and storehouses.

"The man is an enigma. He has raided more of our old facilities, than Talon alone."

"He gives me a vigilante kind of wipe, ya know." Tracer opined. "Someone working outside the boundaries of the law, yet still doing the right thing. Helping the small people, kinda like us. Makes me wonder, why he simply doesn't join up."

"That's exactly what worries me about him. I think he only works with us because our goals don't interfere with his own. He might only use us, only to betray us at the end."

"Aw, don't be like that." Tracer lightly slapped Winston's shoulder. "Maybe he's just shy."

The gorilla scientist couldn't help himself but chuckle. "Whatever the case is, he knows a lot about us. Almost as if he was a former agent of ours."

Tracer looked a little dejected at the implication. "Then that would be more of a reason to come back. Do you think he doesn't trust us, after what happened back then?"

"Who knows, Tracer. Who knows." Winston sighed. "At least he only seems to be targeting terrorist organizations and the such. There're even mentions of him rescuing civilians on numerous occasions."

"See, he is a good guy." Tracer smiled. "I'm sure he'll tell us more about him, once we have shown him that he can trust us."

"Heh, you always try to see the best in people, Lena." Winston shook his head, smiling himself. "I guess all we can do is wait and see for now. In any event, I'll let Athena check the data for anything useful." The Gorilla let out a huge yawn. "I better go to bed or Angela is going to throw a tantrum again."

Tracer let out a heartfelt laugh. "Yeah, we don't want the good doctor to lose her cool again, now do we? Nighty night, big guy."

"More like, good morning. You do remember we're in a different time zone."

"Haha! I'm always in a different time zone."

Winston laughed but didn't comment on the small joke.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Sorry it took so long.

Hana usually wasn't the girl to stay quiet for too long. Usually at this time of the day, she would at least have her phone in her hand, reading some messages and tweets from her friends, tweet back, occasionally post some pictures on her twitter about her breakfast or generally complain that she still needed to go to school, even though she was a hero of the nation. But today, none of this was the case. Heck, for once in her lifetime, her phone hadn't even been turned on. In fact, her last post had been six hours ago, where she canceled the upcoming stream due to health issues. She basically told the community that she was feeling sick after her latest mission and left it at that. Of course, the truth was something completely different.

In a way, Hana was feeling sick, but that was more due to a lack of sleep than anything else. Ever since she had gotten home, she had been lying in her bed and going over the revelation she had experienced earlier today, unable to find any kind of rest. And who could really blame her? She had learned that Zerg was real, which was mind blowing in of itself, yet the tradeoff for that was that they were trying to take over the planet right at this very moment. For the time being, they were more or less contained, but in a matter of days they would break out.

Mentally Hana tried to recall the stats of each Zerg strain, when not upgraded and compared it to the ones of a regular Korean Soldier and her own Mecha. It didn't end well. Her Mecha just wasn't equipped for a full-on surround by Zerglings. Sure in a straight line she could shoot almost anything down and with her booster, she could quickly reposition herself. The problem was, even without the speed upgrade, Zerglings alone was faster than the average car and her booster only lasted for a couple of seconds. Hydralisk could possibly outrange her, given that those things could take down a Battlecruiser with the right numbers. You know those things that can host enough humans to be considered a small village or town. Roaches would easily get the jump on her from underground and banelings...the Xel'Naga helps her if those things come close to her.

In short, fighting wasn't much of an option without the proper equipment and number of soldiers. Granted the South Korean army had pretty cool stuff and more than enough soldiers to fight those monsters (heavenly creatures), but at the same time, it would just not be enough. Two Zerglings were born in a matter of seconds. Real talk here, folks. In the conference today it was revealed that most timers from Starcraft 2, depicted exactly the seconds it took for a new Zerg to be born. There were some minor differences, due to Blizzard balancing the game every now and then.

Here was the thing though. If the Zerg established a Hive and this Hive wasn't found in a matter of hours, the government might as well nuke their own country. Hence why plan B came into play.

Hana was without a doubt the best Starcraft 2 player. She would even say Starcraft 1, though the competition there was way more considerate. Still, what also spoke of her as the best candidate was that she was already heavily involved with the military, had seen things most humans wouldn't be able to bear and was as loyal as a soldier could be to her homeland. These were just a few arguments for picking her out for this insane idea, but one could get the gist already.

However, as fucking awesome, as it would be to become Sarah Kerrigan 2.0, Hana wasn't lost in her daydream to disregard the consequences of becoming infested. First off, who knew if she would even become a leader figure? The most probable scenario was that she would become nothing more than a zombie with tentacles and that would be it for her. The science guys did say they would inject her with a Queen strain, which should make her a Queen herself in some way. But hey, so far all they could do was infest some cells in a laboratory. Whether these would be the actual results or not was questionable at best.

Secondly, say it did work. Say she became the next Queen of Blades. What then? She would never be able to return to her family, let alone human society. Oh, sure they could make up some excuse as to why she couldn't leave her home and give her a computer in her isolation cell so that she could still pursue her career. But what kind of life would that be?

Thirdly, she wouldn't be able to defend her country anymore. Controlling her Mecha from a distance would only result in it being hacked sooner or later.

Finally, she would live forever. Zerg cells don't die off, they regenerate as long as the necessary nutrients were around, be it in form of creep or food. What sounds initially awesome, would only result in Hana grieving for the friends and family she kept losing until she either went insane or stopped caring altogether.

Hana groaned, placing her hands over her face. All of this was starting to give her a real headache. She could just let everyone die, but at the same time did she really wanted to risk going through with the procedure? She didn't know. And right now, she wasn't thinking clearly anyway.

The Mecha Pilot rolled to the side, ignoring the first rays of sunlight entering her room and tried to get some actual sleep, hugging her Zergling plushie tightly.

XXX

A couple of hours later, Hana didn't feel as groggy as she felt before. She actually managed to get some sleep, albeit not enough to really call it a rest, more like a nap. She had been waking up on a regular basis, every thirty minutes or so and as a result, she wasn't exactly happy, when her body told her there were some needs she needed to attend to immediately. Like a zombie emerging from the casket, Hana slowly got up and navigated her way through the maze that had become her house.

After taking care of everything, she stood in front of the sink, glaring at her image in the mirror. Her "war paint" was almost gone, she had huge bags under her eyes and her hair was disheveled, to put it mildly. She didn't bother to comb it. She just simply splashed some water on her face, in order to get that brain of hers to work. When she looked in the mirror again, her reflection appeared like it was paying attention to the real self.

Satisfied, Hana went to her kitchen in order to get herself some fuel into her almost empty tank. Checking her cupboards, the pro-player found out that she was severely lacking in the food department. There was just enough there for her not to starve for the next two days or so. She would need to go shopping today, which suited her just fine. Anything that kept her mind away from thinking about a certain bug species, although they are pretty awesome.

And here she was, thinking about them again. As much as she loved the Zerg and as important as her final decision would be, the last thing she needed right now was to think about anything related to them, 'less she'd become another headache.

So returning to her room, Hana changed into her everyday clothes, something she wore less than her school uniform, let alone her Mecha Suit. Quickly she put on some jeans, a white t-shirt with her personal logo on it and combed her hair. After putting on some socks, the brown haired gamer girl checked herself in the mirror. Deciding that she looked decent enough, even without her war paint, Hana grabbed her phone and made her way to the exit. She just managed to get out of the house, when her phone vibrated violently, causing the gamer girl to roll her eyes. Of course, she would have missed messages on her phone, even though most people had the number to her house. Especially the military guys seemed to forget that she was technically still a civilian.

As expected there were a lot of "Get well" messages from fans. How they manage to get her number every time she changes it, was beyond the gamer girl. She answered the few messages of the people she actually knew while making her way towards the train station. As usual, it was packed to the brim with people, perfect for a celebrity like her to get lost into. Everyone was either busy getting to work or to school. At times the people were paying more attention to their phones than their surroundings, which further helped Hana getting through unnoticed.

With that being said, she was never quite comfortable using the train. Getting a seat at this time of the day was harder than winning the lottery. And the lottery was rigged. So, the Korean gamer girl had no choice but to stand around for half an hour until the train reached the station downtown. One would think with how advanced technology was that the travel time would only consist of ten minutes at most. Luckily for Hana, technology had gotten far enough for her to simply snatch a finger and a small, holographic portable game opened in front of her. Better than holding a tiny piece of plastic and looking directly into a way too tiny screen.

After exiting the train, Hana almost automatically walked through the underground hallways, carefully maneuvering through the stream of people, everyone heading towards a different direction. As was the norm, the girl bumped into a few people on accident, some even rudely shoved her away, but that was just more day to day business in the busy underground train stations of Seoul. But it could be worse. There was this one time she visited Japan… not nice. Not nice at all.

Luckily this wasn't Japan, as such, she had no problem reaching the shop that was placed in the underground. Oh sure, she could go to the surface and walk all the way to the supermarket, where the prices were cheaper and there was a lot more stuff to buy. The thing was, Hana was feeling really lazy today. Like really lazy. If her life (potato chip addiction) wouldn't depend on it, she wouldn't even bother doing some shopping today.

The small shop was practically empty compared to what was going on outside, which was surprising but suited Hana just fine. Though it maybe would have been a good idea to make a shopping list, since her brain wasn't working at 100% as of now. She didn't exactly remember just what was needed, only that her fridge and cupboards are extremely empty for her standards. She tried to remember just what was missing, but gave up after thirty seconds and simply filled her shopping cart with everything she needed and wanted for that matter: Instant noodles, chocolate, chips, mountain dew, pudding, you know, the essentials.

With her shopping cart filled, the gamer girl quickly made her way towards the cash register. There were a couple of people already standing in front of her, one of them being an omnic woman.

Omnics were quite a difficult topic in South Korea, like in so many other countries. A lot of people despise them because every couple of years this huge omnic launched its attack on the nation. Hana and her crew did their best to fend them off, but avoiding any kind of casualties, especially civilian ones was a pipe dream at the best of times. And since humans had the tendency to look for a scapegoat for their problems, the omnic population of South Korea was perfect to vent some frustration. At least no one in the shop had anything against omnics or at least kept it to them.

After the robot woman paid for her shopping, it was Hana's turn. The cashier woman begrudgingly dragged one product after another over the scanner. A couple of years ago this kind of work was done by automatons, but then it came out that those robots had been deliberately manipulated. The lawsuits were still going on.

The woman was about halfway done with her work when Hana suddenly heard the all too familiar sound of the safety of a gun being undone.

"Okay, nobody move." A gruff voice said behind Hana, while something cold was being brought to the back of her head. The woman in front of her, who previously had a bored expression on her face, now sported a mask of complete and utter fear. From the corners of her eyes, the Starcraft 2 champion could see other people tensing up and slowly raising their arms. As for the gamer herself, she was just annoyed at this point.

"The fuck? Seriously?" she muttered to herself.

"Now you," the same gruff voice spoke up again "open the register and put the cash in here." An empty bag was thrown at the woman, who let out a shriek when it hit her face. She fumbled a little bit with her arms, until she finally managed to get it down. Tears were now streaming down her face and she began hiccuping.

"Get on with it already!" the man screamed, pushing the barrel of his gun against Hana's head, which in return caused her to lean forward. She was forced to support herself on the table or else her face would have slammed into it. "Or else I'm gonna blow this girl's brain out!"

That was the last straw for Hana. From the outside, she may not look like it, but she was trained in martial arts. She was by no means a master, but she could take on a thug any day. It was part of the military training. Taking the robber completely off guard, she spun around and slammed the bag of her hand against the man's cheek. It hurt, a lot. Because as it turned out the man wasn't a human, but an omnic!

"Ahh, shit!" Hana cursed, shaking her right hand. The omnic in the meantime stumbled back two steps, but quickly caught himself.

"Bitch!" he cursed and raised his gun again. Reacting on instinct, she quickly grabbed the barrel of the gun and pushed it down. A shot came out, but the bullet hit the ground. The people around the two combatants began to scream, the woman behind Hana was especially loud. The gamer girl could hear everyone inside the shop running away, but her focus was on her opponent. He was an omnic, a robot! He may have been taken aback by her bold actions, but he was still naturally stronger than her. He simply needed to put more energy into his arm and she would be swiss cheese in a couple of seconds.

In order to not get a hole blown into her body, Hana let go and jumped out of the way, when a second shot echoed through the hallways of the subway. The result was complete and utter panic outside of the shop. People were running around, not caring if they slammed others to the ground or straight up trampled on them. This meant for Hana that she couldn't count on any reinforcements from the police or local security for the time being.

She dove straight behind a shelf, just seconds before a third bullet was shot at her. She landed on her stomach but managed to get up immediately after. Again military training. She lost her phone during the motion, but she had no time to pick it up. Despite the screams from outside, she could still hear the heavy footsteps of the omnic coming rapidly closer. Without thinking she sprinted ahead and turned left just in time before another gunshot rang out. Four missed and who knows how much more to go.

"Hold still!"

"Learn to aim!" Hana shouted back, as she ran between the shelves, looking for better cover and a possible exit. She made sure not to stay too long in one row, as it would prove to be a deathtrap. At the same time, she needed to be mindful of where her opponent was, she didn't want to accidentally run into him.

Sadly, all of her cautions was for nothing. It turned out that this guy had a few more brain chips installed, than the usual thug and had an idea. He threw over one shelf, which caused a domino effect to happen. One shelf hit another shelf, that one hit the next and the next and so on until it resulted in Hana being buried under one such shelf. Groaning in pain, she was confused for a couple of seconds, enough time for the omnic to approach her. The gamer girl tried to get the shelf off her back but wasn't able to do so in time. Exactly seven more shots rang out throughout the subway station that day.

XXX

"...prepared."

"...another way…?"

"..."

"She's….!"

"...hear me?"

"...not reacting."

"Doctor!"

*beep* *beep* *beep* *beep*

"There's no time left! Begin the procedure!"


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: What took me so long? Real-life and general laziness.**

"Unrest in South Korea. Since the attack on Agent Hana Song or as she is known to her worldwide fans, the people are getting agitated towards the omnic part of the population. In South Korea, due to the regular omnic attacks, a part of the population has not the best opinion of them. Extremists even go so far as saying they would be better off without the omnics.

Now with the recent attack on Hana Song, sympathizers towards these radical groups seems to have skyrocketed. All over the internet, posts can be found, dedicated to the hashtag, quote: "Send the scrap to the scrapyard!" End quote.

There have been multiple attacks on omnic civilians and even police officers. There have been at least twenty confirmed arrests, but experts say this is just the calm before the storm. As for Hana Song herself, she has been brought to the biggest hospital in Seoul, where she has been in intensive treatment for two days. Our correspondent Jeff Ryder is life in front of the hospital, which is currently under siege by reporters. Jeff, what is the current situation in Seoul."

"Well Tawna, from an outsider's perspective it looks like everything is calm, the people are going on about their daily routines, but not all is as it seems. I have talked to a few passersby earlier and generally, the people appear to be uncertain. Because one needs to remember that Hana Song is indeed a popular defender of Omnic Rights and having one of them bringing her close to death is something no one was prepared for. On the one hand, there are those that say, it was "just a random thug, it could have also been a human." On the other hand, the extremists are using the situation and say that this is "proof that no omnic can be trusted"."

"Speaking of the assailant, what do we know about him?"

"Very little, in fact. The local police forces have been interrogating him for two days by now, but they have yet to make a statement. As for the assailant, his name is Johnson Shortfuse, an omnic who originally came from the US. From what we could gather, he is wanted in multiple states for a list of comparably minor crimes, most of them being thefts and illegal weapon possession. We can only speculate, but the most plausible theory is that he came to South Korea in order to escape the authorities. After all, it is considerably easier for an omnic to learn a new language, than it is for a human."

"That is both interesting and scary. And what about Hana Song? Do we have an update on her status?"

"Indeed we do. A couple of minutes ago, a doctor informed us that Miss Song has been successfully stabilized. He said she was put into an artificially comatose state and is now under 24/7 observation for the time being. At this point, only family members are allowed to visit her. They have yet to make a statement regarding the incident and given what happened, it would be preposterous for us to expect any word from them anytime soon."

"Thank you, Jeff, we will bring you an update as soon as one is available. Onto other news-"

The screen was turned off and Sombra put the remote on the table in the middle of the room. To each of her sides, Widowmaker and Reaper were placed, the former polishing her weapon, while the latter had his arms crossed and looked over to the two women.

"That wasn't one of our operatives, right?" Widowmaker asked.

"No. Hana Song is not a priority target," Reaper replied. "And I hardly believe some random piece of scrap metal is capable of injuring a high-class agent, like that girl. Even if she is a child."

"With that, you are correct my dear Rays," Sombra spoke up, looking at a bunch of violet holographic screens. The other two Talon operatives looked over to the hacker with ever so slight anticipation.

"This "omnic" isn't even an omnic. It was just a remotely controlled robot that happened to look like an omnic. From what I could gather, it isn't even that old. A few weeks at most."

"And how exactly did you acquire this knowledge without leaving the base?" Reaper asked though he knew the answer already.

"Trademark secret." Sombra simply replied. "That and the security was rather lax on that thing, especially for military standards. It looks almost like the thing had been a rushed project."

"By military standards?" Widowmaker echoed, raising an eyebrow. "Are you saying the South Korean Government just took out one of their best agents?"

"Unless this is some elaborate plot threat, weaved by someone else? It looks like it." Sombra shrugged, looking towards her colleague. "Though, since when is anything ever as it seems, correct?"

Reaper and Widowmaker gave each other a look. After a moment, the shotgunner looked back at the hacker, his mask preventing anyone from reading his expression.

"Is whatever is happening in South Korea somehow relevant to our current or future operations?"

"At this point? I cannot tell for sure." Sombra replied honestly. "Here is what I could gather. The little child is not in Seoul anymore, rather she's been brought to a heavily defended military installation." Sombra typed something on the hologram with her special glove. "Rather curiously, they increased the security the day before the little girl got attacked."

"So obviously, they are planning something with 'er." Widowmaker stated obvious, critically eyeing her weapon. "And it's probably correct to assume, that our petite Miss Song would not 'ave agreed with whatever they're doing. The question is: what are they doing to 'er?"

"That I cannot answer without direct access to their system," Sombra told them, sounding a little annoyed. She typed even faster on the small holograms, until one holographic display went in front of all of the others, making a little sound as it did.

"Well, hello. What do we have here?" Sombra muttered allowed, her eyes scanning whatever was displayed in front of her.

"What is it?" Reaper asked.

"If I read this correctly… it looks like our little assault disrupted a top-secret project of theirs, codenamed: Beehive."

"Bee'ive? That was the same codename for our target." the sniper pointed out.

"Precisely." Sombra nodded. "I don't know the connection between the girl and the project as of yet, but I'd say it's worth having a closer look."

XXX

At the same time, in a secret military installation, general Tang was watching the live video feed of the specially designed quarantine room. The researchers working inside the quarantine room all wore bio-hazard suits and were monitoring a huge glass tube, which had been positioned in the middle of the room. Several instruments were attached to the tube, giving their feedback via holo-screens back to the women and men at work.

Inside the glass tube was a big, fleshy cocoon, which floated suspended in a yellow liquid of some sorts. If one looked closer, they could see the cocoon expanding and reducing itself on a regular basis, making it appear like a beating heart.

"So tell me, in what exactly did we put the cocoon?" General Tang asked one of the head scientists, who happened to be standing right next to him.

The woman in question readjusted her glasses, before answering. "Well General, as you might know, a caterpillar needs to eat a lot, before it can put itself into a cocoon and start the transformation or else it would die of starvation. The same principle goes for Miss Song. The virus itself isn't enough to complete her transformation. For the virus, itself needs the right materials in order to make the transformation happening, while at the same time Miss Song needs to be kept alive somehow."

"So, if I understand you correctly, that yellow stuff is basically liquified food?" The man asked, pointing at the tube on the screen.

"Well, if you want to have the simplified version, then yes." The scientists answered. She opened up a holographic screen, which showed some kind of gray substance, along with a lot of tiny written data.

"From what we could gather, the creep is usually responsible for keeping everything fed, including the Zerg creatures that are growing inside their cocoon. Since placing her cocoon inside the Zerg nest is not an option, we had to improvise. By analyzing the creep, we were able to identify the exact components of the substance. Surprisingly, we not only found the nutrients to keep any kind of living being alive but also a variety of minerals and chemicals usually only found in the soil. We even think we were able to find the molecules that are supposed to be the Vespene Gas from the game, though so far we have no way to confirm it."

"One thing, after another." The General advised. "Before we try to find substances that might not even exist in our universe, how about we focus on finding out if our plan is actually working. How is the status of Hana Song?"

The Scientist switched over to some other screens and frowned. "Alive, as far as we can tell. We pick up normal brain activity, her heart rate is steady and at a good pace and aside from the occasional twitch or cramp, there hasn't been much of noteworthy activity. However, at the same time, we cannot tell for sure if our modified virus is doing what it is supposed to do. We dare not risk damaging the cocoon for further insights, lest we risk Agent Song's life."

The General frowned. "I see. And I assume everything has been prepared in case of an emergency?"

"Evacuation plans are in place, defense systems are online and on standby and the self-destruction, sequence codes have been distributed. The security personnel is ready as well, though you'd be more informed with this than I am."

Tang nodded. "Yes, don't worry. The security personnel is prepared for any kind of situation. What I also wanted to know Doctor, is there any kind of deadline we can estimate as of Miss Song's… rebirth?" the General struggled to find the right word for a second there.

The Doctor could only shake her head. "It's lottery at this point. The animals we tested the virus on had varying development times. Rats were usually the quickest, even though sometimes it took a whole day for them to transform. The only real reference we have, namely the game, gives hardly an accurate picture. The transformation of the Queen of Blades is supposed to have taken weeks, though she was a very special case. Since Miss Song is as normal as a human can be, we hope the process will only take a couple of days, preferably before the Zerg manage to escape. We cannot just assume that Miss Song will be able to control them from the get-go, but rather she will need at least some form of practice."

"I knew this was a bad idea." The General sighed.

"It's the best we have, given the circumstances." the doctor replied. "The only thing we can do is learn from our mistakes and go on."

"Did we really learn anything, though?" The General mumbled, looking at the screen. He was immediately brought out of his musings when his earpiece received a transmission.

"General."

Tang tapped on his earpiece. "Yes?"

"Your visitor has arrived."

"Good. Tell him I will be there in five minutes."

General Tang ended the transmission and turned towards the scientist once again. "I want a report every three hours and I don't care if her condition hasn't even changed one bit by then. If this goes wrong, then we might as well launch our nukes against our own country. Understood?"

"Understood General. I'll inform the staff immediately."

"Good. I'll be in my office." Having said his piece, Tang walked out of the room at a brisk pace.

XXX

"Soldier 76." General Tang announced his return to the office, by calling out his visitor's name. The gray-haired man in question turned around and glared at the military man through his red visor. Of course, General Tang couldn't really see this, but giving the wrinkles on the forehead, it wasn't hard to guess.

"I didn't actually think you would come." Tang walked past the man and sat down behind his desk. He motioned towards a chair in front of his desk and 76 took a seat as well. But he still kept his weapon at the ready with the safety undone.

"I figured if a General of all things wanted to see me, it had to be important." Soldier replied. "Though I should remind you, I'm not a mercenary. I work on my own."

"On your own," Tang repeated with a scoff. "Don't try to fool me. I'm well aware of the fact that you and Miss Amari are conducting operations together. Not to mention the many times the two of you worked together with Overwatch."

Soldier 76 jumped off from his seat, pointing his weapon at the man in front of him.

"How do you know about her?!" He demanded to know, to which the general could only chuckle.

"Oh please, Mr. 76. If I wouldn't have known so much about the founders of Overwatch, a simple Google search would have been enough for me to find out who she was. After all, the two of you rarely seem to have the time to remove the evidence from the scenes of your operations. Particularly the syringes in some of the victims' necks."

76 appeared to be scowling under that mask of his, but he lowered his weapon and sat down once again. "What do you want?" Soldier asked.

In response, General Tang snapped his fingers and a holo-screen appeared behind him. It showed a picture of the now no longer secret laboratory, specifically, the picture came from one of the surveillance cameras. On it was shown an ongoing firefight between the Overwatch Agents and Talon Operatives.

"Last week, you and Overwatch managed to successfully thwart off a Talon attack on one of our most valuable facilities. While I cannot officially thank you or your cohorts for this, I can at least say I appreciate the help."

"Uh huh." Soldier stated, waiting for the General to go on.

"Sadly, we have reasons to believe that they will try again, as they failed to obtain their objective."

"You think they'll just try again? After a few days, when you're on high alert?" Soldier asked with skepticism in his voice. "Talon aren't just a bunch of fanatics with guns. They're highly trained operatives, who sometimes plan years in advance before they strike."

"I am well aware of that, Mr. 76." The General replied. "Given that it was them who took out our most valuable agent, it stands to reason that they will attack rather sooner than later."

76 raised an eyebrow. "They attacked the girl?"

"A girl she might be," Tang conceded "but still, she is the best we have when it comes to open combat." The General snapped his fingers again and the screen behind him now showed a picture of the Omnic that attacked Hana Song.

"We found out rather quickly that this here is in fact not an Omnic, but a remotely controlled robot."

"Clever." Soldier admitted. "Minimal risk for personnel being caught and fuel for the hate towards the Omnics."

"Clever indeed, but not clever enough. My men were capable of tracing back the signal towards an empty apartment. And empty it was, they cleaned it almost spotless."

"When you say almost, I take it you found some evidence that Talon had been present?" Soldier inquired.

"There were a few things, but most outstanding was a mask we found." Another snap and the screen changed again, showing a mask that was usually worn by Talon Operatives. Someone was holding it in his or her hand. "It might not be much, but given what Talon is capable off, I'd rather not take any chances."

"Heh, sensible. So, I take it you want me to protect whatever precious cargo Talon is after?"

"Not exactly." The General disagreed. "The "cargo" as you put it was destroyed during the fight. The Project has been lost forever and there's no way to reboot it. However, Talon is not aware of that."

"A trap." Soldier 76 realized. "You're planning on setting up a trap for Talon. Still, why are you telling me this? This sounds like highly classified information, no matter whether the cargo was lost or not."

"I know when to make compromises, Mr. 76," Tang replied coolly. "As you just said, we're planning on springing a trap on Talon. Preferably we want to catch as many agents as possible alive, however, no one would cry if one or two end up dead."

"Heh, you're talking to me as if I'd already say yes. Now tell me," 76 leaned forward. "Just why exactly should I help you guys out, when your government is after me, just like the rest of the world?"

In response, General Tang he opened a drawer and took out a specific file. Instead of it being a holo-vid, it was a good old-fashioned paper folder with actual papers inside. Hey, people, this is the future, how many trees do you think are still around?

With a raised eyebrow 76 grabbed the file and opened it. Hidden under his visor, his eyes scanned the contents of what was written inside the files. He minded his body language while doing so. Even though most of his facial features were hidden, 76 knew that an experienced man like Tang could easily read a person by the smallest hints he or she gave away.

The file contained multiple pages and 76 took his time to read through every single one of them. During this time, the General received a call through his earpiece. "I'm in the middle of an important meeting." The man spoke a little annoyed. "Tell them to wait. I'll be with them, once I'm done here. Do not tell them anything, I'll deal with that."

General Tang let out a small sigh, leaning back in his chair. Soldier 76 was still busy going through the files and was probably going to be for quite some time. "Do you want some coffee, maybe?"

XXX

Hana didn't know how long she had been in this state. For quite a while she had been here in fetus-position, swimming in this warm liquid. She knew it wasn't water since it was way too thick for it to be water. And although she was covered from head to toe in this warm stuff, Hana somehow wasn't drowning. In fact, she wasn't even sure if she had been breathing the entire time she had spent there. She certainly didn't remember sucking air into her nose or even opening her mouth. In fact, whenever she tried, Hana found herself unable to move pretty much any part of her body. Even small things like opening her eyes appeared to be impossible for the girl.

At times the gamer girl wondered if she was dreaming. She remembered the theft she had tried to prevent only too well. Getting shot that many times in the back is far from a fun experience. Her current theory was that the doctors had put her in a comatose state and were currently working on her. But she wasn't sure if that was really the case or if she actually succumbed to her wounds, the latter of which would suck a great deal. Because if this was really the afterlife, it was pretty boring.

However, it wasn't always like this. There were those few times where Hana would feel something going on with her body, which supported her comatose theory. Especially at the beginning it had felt like her flesh had been ripped apart and her bones broken, fixed and then broken again. Those things still happened, but luckily not as frequent as in the beginning.

Then there were the times, where she felt a certain pressure onto her head. It never lasted for too long, a couple of minutes at most, but during those times she sometimes could swear that there were voices trying to talk to her. For the moment, Hana chalked it up to the drugs possibly messing with her head. At the moment, all she could really do was to relax and get some rest until she woke up on her own or got woken up by the doctors.


	5. Chapter 5

Reaper had to wonder just what was nowadays considered as top-notch security. Because what he and his two cohorts were doing was quite frankly ridiculous. Well, usually one wouldn't consider sneaking into a top-secret base exactly ridiculous. Some would consider it suicidal, others an adrenaline rush and someone like Reaper usually considered this at just another day at work. Emphasize on "usually".

When Sombra stole the schematics of this facility, the least any of the three Talon Agents expected to find was an old emergency exit, which basically gave them access to 90% of the entire base! Apparently, this base had been built all the way back in the 1930s, when security standards were completely different from what they were nowadays. Of course, security had been updated over the years, with the exception one little thing: the exit of the fire-escape route. It was located around a mile outside of the actual facility and clearly hadn't been taken care of as much as it should have. For starters, the ladder leading downwards was rusty and would have collapsed if any of the three people would have used it. So instead, Sombra used her teleporter, Reaper his weird shadowy abilities (Sombra's words) and Widowmaker her grappling hook in order to get down safely.

Down in the first hallway, the three silently questioned whether this was really a good idea to get into the base that way or not. There was water, presumably, from rain on the ground, the hatch door in front of them had already fallen to the ground and judging from these tiny rocks falling on top of their heads, it was very likely that the tunnel they were using could collapse any second.

There were some very old lamps attached to the side of the wall, although even if the power had been turned on, they probably wouldn't work. Reaper himself went ahead and put the door out of the way because his two companions couldn't turn themselves into smoke and fly through the cracks.

"What a gentleman," commented Sombra off-handedly.

"Get a move on," Reaper growled and walked ahead. Sombra and Widowmaker followed him dutifully, the former rolling her eyes in amusement. It turned out the inside the of fire escape was just in a bad shape as the entrance/exit. The ground was cracked, as well as the walls, from somewhere in the distance the trio could hear water dripping somewhere and they even came across an old first-aid kit, which had dropped from its spot on the wall. At one point, tiny rocks fell on top of Widowmaker's head. The French woman looked up at the ceiling, frowning.

"Let's pick up the pace. This tunnel looks like it could collapse any second," the sniper stated.

Reaper and Sombra nodded, increasing their pace.

XXX

("...I can feel them.")

Hana's body stirred a little.

("They are there… yet they are not.")

Her fingers twitched.

("They are me… and I am them.")

Her hand balled up into a fist.

("But at the same time, I am more. And they know it.")

Beneath her eyelids, one could see the eyes moving in a rapid fashion.

("This power… just what is this? It feels… so awesome.")

XXX

The easy (and wet) part of the mission was done, now came the tricky part: making their way through the actual facility. For this part, Widowmaker and Reaper would hide in the old fire escape, while Sombra made her way through the hallways, in order to create a distraction. Using her cloaking ability, she easily managed to dodge patrols, the paths being big enough to let two cars drive next to each other.

If one would look close enough, they would be able to see the subtle flicker that Sombra created whenever she moved, while she was cloaked. But like almost any guard that wasn't deployed in a war zone, they were bored out of their minds, not really paying any attention to their surroundings. This became very apparent when she came across a soldier and a woman wearing a science lab coat, who were talking to each other casually.

"... and then all of the sudden, they called me one day and told me I had seen enough. So now I'm stuck here in this shithole, trying to find a way to mind control ants of all things," the woman complained.

"Really?" the soldier asked with a raised eyebrow. "You gotta be pulling my leg here."

"Puh-lease," the woman waved off, putting her hands on her hips. "This project is so ridiculous, like, we're trying to build little machines with which we can control the ants' brainwaves, while another group tries to artificially recreate the pheromones ant queens and bee queens produce with which they control their subjects."

"Okay, now I really know you're pulling my leg here. First off, why would the higher ups spend money on that? And secondly, even if it's true, that's the kind of stuff I'm not supposed to know," the Korean soldier replied.

"I don't even care about protocol anymore," the woman huffed in annoyance. "I have been screwed over so many times, I'm actively thinking of quitting all of this and try my luck at the free market."

"Yeah, whatever," the soldier rolled his eyes. "I just wished I wouldn't spend my time wasting here when I could fight against the omnics on the front."

"The front? We should call ourselves lucky that the omnics have been holding off on their attack for so long. This has given us enough time to upgrade the MEKA division."

"Yeah, right. The kids get all of the toys, while we adults are stuck with the old junk."

Their talk continued on, but Sombra had already left. She had successfully managed to sneak into a small control room for the electricity on this floor. While usually there was a central control room for the entire building, it wasn't that uncommon for military bases to have more than one, usually when there's something important on the floor or just simply as a backup station.

Despite what one might think, Sombra did not cause a blackout. In case of a blackout, there are always backup generators, plus it wouldn't really empty the floor like she intended to do. Using the local computers, she easily managed to hack herself into the main system. The first thing she did was set the cameras on this floor in a loop. Basically, they showed the same ten minutes of activity on the monitor over and over again. This would be found out sooner or later, but by the time it did, she and her fellow Talon Officers would be long gone. After she was done tampering with the cameras, she started the actual distraction.

"ATTENTION ALL BASE PERSONNEL!" an electronic voice shouted over the speakers, while an alarm was going off. "FIRE HAS BEEN DETECTED IN SECTOR F! PLEASE GO TO YOUR ASSIGNED RALLYING POINT AND EVACUATE THE BASE!"

"Is this another drill?" Sombra heard a voice complaining outside.

"We just had one last week!"

"Oh, I hate it when my horoscope is correct…"

XXX

In the meantime, while the alarm was going off, Reaper and Widowmaker waited for the signal from Sombra to finally go into the actual base.

"Commander," Reaper heard a voice over his com system that was completely new to him. He guessed this was Sombra's doing. "What about agent song?" the voice asked. "We can't just carry her the whole way up when we're not allowed to use the elevators."

"Don't worry about her, doctor," the voice who was presumably the commander, replied. "The isolation chamber is fireproof and it's got its own air supply. She'll manage an hour without your supervision."

"Understood sir."

Reaper couldn't help but think that the plan was going way smoother than he thought it would go. So far he and his fellow agents had been pretty lucky. Stumbling across the security breach with the old fire escape and now they even had confirmation that their target would be left alone for at least an hour. That was a hell of a lot of time for him and his cohorts to carry out their plan.

He was brought out of his musings when Sombra suddenly appeared between him and Widowmaker. The latter raised her weapon and let out a curse in French when she noticed that it was just the hacker.

"What's the status?" Reaper asked.

"She's on this floor," Sombra told him. "I took care of the cameras and the automatic defenses. Once everyone has left this floor, we can move out."

"What's the condition of the girl?" the sniper asked the hacker.

"Dunno. I couldn't crack the door while there were still people going around. But I overheard some guards. She's definitely in there."

"Let's just hope this wasn't a complete waste of time," Reaper stated, after checking his weapons.

"The girl is the only lead we have left," Widowmaker reminded her colleague. "Sombra's information is usually correct. Usually."

"Hey, when do I have ever messed up?" the hacker asked with a cheeky grin. In reply, she only got two deadpan stares from the other agents.

The purple clothed hacker huffed and opened the door to the base. "This should be enough time. Follow me."

And although they had at least an hour to complete their mission, the Talon Agents ran through the now empty floor, with Sombra leading them through the maze-like structure. As expected, they didn't meet anyone on their way and although the cameras were following every movement of the intruders, no alarm was raised. Still, not taking any chances, Widowmaker listened in to the enemy radio communications.

"Sir, the firefighting team is ready."

"Excellent. We're missing a couple of people from Sector F. Keep a lookout for them."

"Yes, sir."

"Sir," another voice spoke up. "We found three people from Sector F. They just arrived at their rally point and report smoke coming out of the vents."

"Smoke?" Widowmaker repeated.

"Well, I had to make the fire somewhat real," Sombra told her from the front. "Or else they'll find out this ruse very quickly. So I overheated a couple of computers and caused the one or other malfunction in the ventilation system. Anyway, we're here."

The trio stopped in front of a huge bunker door, which was as big and probably weighed as much as a tank. Using the nearby terminal, Sombra quickly unlocked the door and Reaper being the gentleman that he was, opted to open the door himself. With that being done, the Talon Agents entered the isolation chamber, which turned out to be bigger than they thought it to be. There was an empty observation room stationed behind them, secured with bulletproof glass. The room itself opted enough space for a multitude of tanks and in the center of the said room was a glass tube, big enough for a human to be placed in. The tube was filled with some orange stuff and only a shadow inside the liquid indicated that someone was inside.

Sombra walked in front of the tube and looked down at the small terminal. "This is something else…" she muttered to herself, as she pushed a couple of buttons on the terminal. Soon enough the computer gave an affirmative noise and the orange liquid began to drain out of the tube until it revealed something that none of the Talon Agents expected to see: a human-sized puppet.

"What the-?!"

"Is this a joke!?"

"It's a trap!" Reaper realized, but it was too late. The door behind the trio slammed shut, locking the trio inside the isolation chamber. In reaction, the three almost immediately began shooting at the glass on the observation room, but as previously mentioned: it was bulletproofed.

"Sombra! Get us out of here, now!" the masked man shouted, to which the hacker immediately got to work on the door. However, since she didn't have direct access to a terminal or something similar, it would take considerably more time. And given that security was now on the highest alert, well, this added at least ten more seconds to her workload.

"Welcome Talon," a voice greeted them over the speakers in the room. "We have been expecting you."

"We figured," Reaper replied with a growl, looking at one of the cameras in the room.

"Now, now, don't be upset. I mean, you had quite the obvious interest in one of our projects. So I figured, as a sign of goodwill, I would help you out just a little bit."

"Help us out?" Sombra asked while working on the door. "How generous of you."

"Thank you very much, Sombra. You see, our experts weren't sure whether our security measures would be enough to stop the best hacker in the world."

"So you fed us false information?" Widowmaker asked while sending a glare at Sombra.

"Impossible!" Sombra shouted. "Even if you issued wrong orders, I would have easily found out about it and find the real ones."

"That's what I thought," the disembodied voice told them. "And I was thinking to myself: 'How can I possibly stop a hacker who can hack anything and anyone?' And that's when the answer made itself obvious."

"Oh, do tell," the purple hacker challenged. "What is there that I possibly cannot hack?" she asked. "Almost there," she whispered to her cohorts, who readied themselves for the opening of the door. No doubt, there was already a surprise waiting for them.

A chuckle could be heard through the intercoms before the voice spoke again. "Tell me, Sombra. Have you ever written a good old fashioned letter?"

Sombra actually stopped her fingers dead in her tracks and looked up at the speaker system in shock. "A letter?"

"You know, ink, paper? Oh, you can't believe the logistical nightmares we went through. But I would say in the end, it was well worth it. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. 76?"

XXX

In the meantime, inside a completely different military installation, Commander Park was hurrying across the hallways of his own base, dodging the base personnel, as he came across it. Most people were smart enough to quickly get out of his way, but a few unfortunate souls ended up getting shoved aside, without so much as an apology. This went on until he finally reached the elevators. He rode it all the way down to the last floor and once down, he exited it as quickly as he entered it.

In a matter of minutes, Commander Park arrived in the observation room of the isolation chamber. What he found was that all of the lab coat wearing men and women were either glued to their monitors or the window allowing a view into the isolation chamber.

"What's going on here?!" the commander shouted into the room, although given the urgency with which he had been called down here, he already had a pretty good guess. Everyone in the room turned towards him, upon hearing his voice.

"Commander," the lead scientist called out "you have to see this!" The man urged the Commander to come to the window, which the man did. Once he looked down the chamber, he almost gasped in shock, when he saw what was going on. Where once was the special containment unit in which they had put Agent Song, now was a human-sized, pulsating ball of flesh.

"What in the seven circles of hell is that?!" the commander shouted. He also noted that civilian personnel had been evacuated from the isolation room and only military men and women remained down there. Each of them wore a biohazard suit and had their weapons pointed at the flesh thingy. Automated turrets had been activated and were on standby. Someone went as far as to deploy heavy weapon teams down there. Given what they were dealing with, it probably would have been a good idea to deploy one or two tanks down there as well.

"That is the cocoon Agent Song is in," the lead scientist explained. "It grew practically in a matter of minutes around her body and continued expanding its size these past minutes, until now. We think Agent Song's transformation is as good as complete."

"I see…" the commander spoke slowly, his gaze fixated on the cocoon. "What are the chances of her going berserk?"

The lead scientist frowned. "It's hard to tell, hence the security measures. She'll probably be disoriented for a time and might panic when she sees the weapons. At the same time, we cannot risk-"

"Somethings happening!" one woman at the monitors shouted. "Her heart rate is increasing rapidly! The scanners detect rabid movements inside the cocoon. She's about to hatch!"

Indeed, one could see the cocoon pulsating faster and faster as if it was a heart itself. Acting quickly, Commander Park pressed a button in front of him, activating the speaker system. "Listen up, soldiers. Hold your weapons ready, but don't shoot unless you absolutely have to. Remember, we need this girl alive."

The commander hoped this would stop the more trigger-happy soldiers from firing their weapons too early. From what he had heard from the briefings, it would probably take several thousand bullets in order to kill Agent Song now. Of course, this was only speculation at this point, as no one had any idea what the virus had truly done to her. However, given what he read in the reports about the Zerg specimen, it took a lot of force to break the armor of a Zerg. Conventional weapons were pretty much useless unless you hit the weak spots of the individual Zerg you were fighting. Hence the heavy weapon teams. Although, a couple of bazookas would probably be a good idea too.

But it wasn't like they had any time to reequip the soldiers or anything. Because only a couple of seconds after the commander had given his orders, the cocoon finally burst or rather, it exploded, revealing the newborn Hana Song. The only problem was, no one could see her because they were all covered in Zerg-goo or in the case of the commander and the scientists, the windows were covered in goo, flesh and blood.


End file.
